Lessons in Private Investigating
by QuantumSpanner
Summary: While Jeff and Britta try to cheer up Annie by drinking an unholy amount of alcohol, Shirley and Pierce investigate their false assumption that Jeff and Britta are secretly sleeping together again. Bear with me I'm not a native English speaker. Also please review even if it's bad.
1. Chapter 1

Lessons in Private Investigating

Over the summer Annie dated a guy named Evan. But at the start of the new semester he surprisingly broke up with her. Naturally Annie is devastated, embarrassed and for the first time in her life she stays at home during a school day. Troy and Abed are over challenged with the situation and turn to Britta who in their mind is well experienced in break-ups and relationship. Being a psyche Major Britta is very excited to help Annie get over this douche. After all women should not be whining about some dude who didn't even deserve them.

The study group is discussing the issue in the library while Annie is crying her eyes out at home.  
"That poor thing." Shirley says sympathetically. Jeff reacts rather strong to the news of the break-up. He's enraged about the fact that someone broke up with Annie.  
"She deserves better and this guy is an idiot for not seeing how awesome she is!" Everyone is staring at him. But soon turning to other topics like the Dean's new idea of themed days. This day is supposed to be bring-your-baby-photos-to-school day. Nobody took that seriously. Having discussed everything, Shirley leaves for the bathroom. Troy and Abed are eager to get the best mini-pizzas for lunch and Pierce is off to the Sandwich Shop. That leaves Jeff and Britta alone at the study table.

„What's going on with you defending Annie so strongly? ", she asks expecting to get a snarky comment. But Jeff just shrugs his shoulders not understanding what the fuss is about. Rolling her eyes Britta starts talking about her plan to talk to Annie and make her feel better. Given that she has a lot of experience in relationships and love, she could give her some good advice. At the word „advice" Jeff chuckles and can't help to inform Britta that she is anything but a love expert. Moreover, apart from her lack of sensitivity, Annie wouldn't want a parental lecture on relationships anyways.  
„Maybe you could come with me then and we'll help her together? ", surrenders Britta. Jeff can only imagine the awkwardness of him and Britta playing relationship advisor with Annie. „But we've got to do something! " Britta insists when seeing the skeptical look on Jeff's face.  
„We're her friends and Troy and Abed aren't going to do it. They have no idea how to handle these kinds of things, especially Abed. Can you imagine him comforting Annie? "For once Britta is right, Jeff thinks. But what else could they possibly do without going into creepy mum and dad mode? Suddenly his eyes light up with an idea.  
„Let me call Annie, I'll handle it. " Britta stares at him blankly.  
„What's you plan, Winger? " She asks impatiently. But Jeff has already gone out of the study room and into the library corridor. The phone rings once, twice, three times, four times. At the fifth ring Annie answers her phone with a shaky „Yes? "  
„Hi, Annie, it's me, Jeff. ", he says nervously when hearing her weak voice.  
„I know, I see your name on the display. What is it? I know I missed class today, "she says tiredly.  
„Yeah…I…we heard about it. And we're really sorry, Annie." I'm really not good at this, he thinks. Let's better cut to the chase: „So Britta and I had an idea..."  
„I don't need grief counseling from Britta again. We've already been there with Star-Burns. At the end we trashed the school, so…"  
„No no, it's not like that Annie. We thought about getting you out of your little room and get…"he sighs audibly into the speaker, „… considerably drunk and have some fun. What do you say? ". Silence at the other end of the line. Did he really think that his way of dealing with negative things would help Annie? Annie the walking day planner, Annie the sweet perfectionist with the crease-free clothes?  
„Sounds fine to me…", Annie coyly replies eventually.  
„Really?...I mean, great! Let's say 8 p.m my place? Britta and I'll bring the booze. You just…show up, alright? "  
„Okay….you're really great friends", Annie says and Jeff swears he could hear a little smile in her voice for the first time in their conversation. Then it strikes him. Getting considerably drunk with Annie and Britta at his place? Some unholy fantasies flashed his mind. „Shirley would so not approve", he mumbles amusedly to himself.

„What would Shirley not? ", Says a sweet voice behind him. It's Shirley returning from her bathroom break.  
„You wouldn't approve if we didn't go and eat one of your sandwiches for lunch", he says with a bright mischievous smile. Raising one eye-brow Shirley turns around and vanishes towards the cafeteria. „That better be true! ", she says while walking away. Jeff exhales and returns to Britta who still sits at the study table. „So? ", she asks, „what did she say? "  
„She said it's fine, we'll meet at 8 at my place." He grins, knowing that Britta missed to ask the right question first. „I mean, what did YOU say, dummy? Meet for what? "  
„I said we'll get her out of her little room and get drunk. Real drunk. You and I get the booze. "

At the sandwich shop's back office Shirley and Pierce are eating lunch. „Pierce, can I ask you something? "  
„Shoot! ", Pierce mumbles with his mouth full of tuna sandwich. „Do you think that maybe…Jeff and Britta are…", Shirley struggles with mouthing the words she fears to be true since she overheard Jeff planning something she wouldn't approve of.  
„Gay? ", Pierce finishes her sentence, „I've suspected that since the very beginning. If you ask me, no straight man would wear such tight shirts. "  
„Ugh Pierce, I don't mean gay. I mean…having premarital sex…again. ", She whispers the last few words. „Why would you think that? ".  
„Well, I overheard Jeff making some plans for tonight at his place. And then he said that I wouldn't approve of it. And I kept thinking what it could be. The only conclusion I came to is that he and Britta are secretly sleeping together again."  
"So they're not gay. That's disappointing."  
"Pierce, do you still have that espionage equipment from when we were investigating Britta's sandwich guy?" says Shirley ignoring Pierce's "pierce-ness".  
"Sure, I even expanded the collection. I can give you something called the grappling-mic; half grappling hook, half microphone. It's 950$ but I'm willing to give you a discount."  
"I think a car with tinted glasses and a good, normal microphone will do. Are you in?"  
"In what? I don't understand, Shirley." Pierces says visibly confused.  
"I'm going to wait for Britta to leave her apartment and follow her to Jeff's. So I have evidence if I'm confronting them."  
"Shirley, you're lucky. My third wife always called me Bond. Because of our bondage games and because I'm also a great spy."  
"Oh good Lord, you better make me not regret this."


	2. Chapter 2

Later that day Britta is preparing for the drinking night and packs some beer cans, a bottle of Tequila and some lemons in her backpack. She's not sure if Jeff isn't just feeding on sunlight and air so she packs the salt as a precaution as well. Meanwhile Shirley and Pierce approach her flat in a black Sedan with tinted windows.

"Ugh Pierce, I'm really not sure this is a good idea anymore" Shirley sighs.

"Don't worry, she can't see us. It's the perfect spy car. Just like this Batboy's one. You know, from the movie, Abed made me watch."

"Oh oh there she is!" Shirley yelps excitedly. And she's right. Britta exits her flat with a backpack full of hard liquor and beer. "I bet she's got her toiletries and clothes in that backpack. Follow her, Pierce."

And both Pierce and Shirley slowly drive behind Britta's light blue wreck of a car hoping to find her secretly dating Jeff.

Britta already in party mood turns up the volume of her cassette player. "Rooooooxaaaannne….you don't have to put on the red light…" she sings at the top of her voice while fumbling to light her little joint. When she finally manages to take a puff she also notices a black car driving dangerously close to her own which wouldn't be as annoying if the car hadn't such bright lights. "At the next crossroad I have to turn left anyway, this idiot better not head in the same direction", she thinks. But of course the idiot in the car is Pierce and Shirley who aren't trying to raise any suspicion but manage to do so anyway.

Britta's fear is rising with every turn. But the mafia car is not letting go of her. With shaking fingers she tries to reach Jeff on his cell phone. She hasn't got a plan yet but if anything happens and she is found dead in the gutter the next day, she figures she'd better letting somebody know about the black car.

Meanwhile Jeff opens his door to a very small slouchy version of Annie.

"Hey, Jeff." She tries to smile.

"Hey, come…come in. Britta's not here yet, but she must be any second." Right on cue Jeff's phone starts to ring.

"Speaking of the devil…" he smiles at Annie and answers the phone.

"Hey Britta, where are you? Hurry up" he says despite she is not even late yet. But Jeff doesn't really know what to do with a lovesick Annie on his couch. So any minute Britta isn't there is a minute of plain awkwardness.

"Jeff, I think I'm being followed and I'm really scared." She says in the most earnest way possible.

"Are you smoking weed again, Britta?"

"Nooo, I mean yes, but that's not relevant. I'm being followed by a black car."

Jeff would normally roll his eyes and tell her to smoke less but the fear in her voice kind of irritates him.

"Then call me when you're in front of the apartment building. I'll pick you up and bring my baseball bat, okay?" Jeff hangs up and turns to Annie with an amused smile. Now he's got something to talk about. And maybe Britta's misfortune will even cheer her up a little. Fortunately it really works. Annie's eyes have already regained some of her usual determination which Jeff admires so much.

"Let's start the night with some wine, shall we?" Jeff suggests but at the same moment his phone starts to ring again.

"Excuse me for a moment. I have to kill Britta's ghost with a baseball bat real quick." He laughs.

Shirley and Pierce have decreased their speed a little so they wouldn't be as auspicious anymore.

"Oh Lord, there's Jeff…with a…baseball bat?"

"It's called 'American Hero' and is a common sex position, Shirley." Pierce says expertly.

"Don't stop Pierce, he's looking at us...oooohhh and I knew it they're hugging!" Shirley is torn between trying not to get busted and her joy of seeing Jeff and Britta together. Even if they are only hugging and Shirley shouldn't feel joy but concern.


	3. Chapter 3

When Jeff walkes out of his building a visibly stoned and crazed out Britta is rushing towards him and overwhelms him with a tight hug as if she was followed by the devil himself.

"Thank goodness! I thought I was going to die", she mumbles into his shoulder. Truly surprised by her obvious fear he scans the street for a black car. To his own surprise there is one driving past Jeff's building and turning right at the next crossroad. Admittedly he doesn't believe a single word Britta said and solely blames it on the weed she smoked. But he can't shake off that familiar feeling he got when he saw the car. It was a black car with tinted windows that could either be a Sedan or a Mercedes. He has seen that very same car before somewhere. Never mind, he thinks, trying not to let anything of Britta's paranoia rub off on him.

"Let's go Britta, Annie's waiting. And the booze doesn't go in our veins by itself."

Shirley and Pierce are taking an extra lap around the block to avoid getting caught by Jeff and Britta. After all Jeff looked directly at the passenger seat with that skeptical look of his. The wannabe-private investigators agree to pursue their plan anyway because Shirley claims she'd need more evidence.

"What are you going to do if you find out they are in fact having sex, Shirley?" Pierce asks having one of his rare wise moments, "Sometimes you just can't shake a person from your system. You said so yourself, remember?"

Shirley suddenly becomes silent and stares down at the huge bag in her lap. She struggles to say something but decides to ignore Pierce's questions instead. But Pierce is still looking at her, not taking lap-staring as an answer.

"I'm going to confront them and tell them what they already know: I don't approve. They were messing with the fabric of the group." Shirley repeats her arguments from lunch time and last year. Only this time she's not so sure if that's really the reason she soon will be spying on Jeff and Britta with a powerful microphone.

Pierce notices the doubt in her voice but decides to let it go this time. Particularly as he's quite eager to try out the "PowerPhone 3000" he bought from his Serbian rum supplier who also happens to be a vendor of high quality espionage equipment.

"…and he was like, here's your couch, sleep well. And I was like, what the fuck! I didn't drive 200 miles to sleep on your couch, asshole. And then I left. In the middle of the freaking night." Britta concludes telling one of her anecdotes.

Somehow they started to talk about awful dates and thereby subtly putting Annie's break-up into perspective. And Annie really seems to forget her pain. When they opened their second bottle of wine, she also opens up and jokes about her gay high school boyfriend.

Relieved that Annie is obviously enjoying herself, Jeff opens the bottle of rum to mix some Cuba Libres. A few glasses of wine aren't doing anything for his level of hammered-ness. And he still has a promise to keep: Getting considerably drunk.

"I've got another story." he shouts from the kitchen expecting Britta and Annie to still sit on the couch. But when he turns around the two girls aren't there. Finally he hears joyful giggling coming from the bathroom. But before he could realize what the girls' amusement is about, Britta is already doing him the favor of telling him.

"Oooh Jeffy, I didn't know you're such a girly-girl!" laughs the blonde. With tears in her eyes Britta presents Jeff his basket full of creams, lotions, nail files and tweezers. Although being the tipsiest of all three, Annie realizes that they crossed some kind of a personal border with digging up all of Jeff's facial products.

"There is a reason I keep them in a safe. It's because of nosey girls like you." He says.

"Sorry Jeff, it's the wine making us do this. But you have to admit it is kind of funny." Annie tries to defuse the situation with a charming smile and doe eyes.

Jeff realizes it's not the place and time to start arguing about privacy and so he let it go taking a big gulp from the rum and coke mix in his glass.

"Well then hopefully the Cuba Libre will make you do things I actually appreciate, Annie." He says but instantly regretting it because those words came out more flirtatious than he intended.

"To doing things Jeff appreciates!" Britta proposes while taking one of the long drinks and raising it to clink glasses.

In the meantime Shirley and Pierce got into the building by ringing random bells hoping someone would buzz the door open. Usually Shirley would be complaining about such a low security level but not this time. With what appears to be a smaller satellite dish with headphones, Pierce and Shirley position themselves in front of Jeff's door.

"You get a signal?" Shirley whispers to Pierce who is turning and pushing various buttons on the expensive device. But Shirley already knows the answer. The strained look on Pierce's face and the erratic button-pushing say more than a thousand words.

"Do you even know how to operate this thing?" Shirley reluctantly tries again.

"Do I even? Of course I do, Shirley. Those kinds of things need some time to adjust correctly. Not that you would understand anyway." Pierce shoots back still desperately trying to get a signal from the other side of the door.

Minutes pass and Pierce is still figuring out how the "PowerPhone 3000" works. Shirley has surrendered and sits down in the hallway.

"Pierce, please stop. It's not going to work. I think it's a sign from above. I shouldn't be spying on my friends." Shirley finally concedes. "Please forgive me." She adds silently because this was not directed at Pierce.

Pierce stops fumbling with the microphone as if having a sudden realization. "Shirley, why aren't you at home with André and the kids?"

Shirley looks at him with wide eyes not saying anything at first. Then she lets out a huge sigh collecting herself to tell the truth.


	4. Chapter 4

Last chapter. For my first ever fan fiction I think it turned out all right. I wish I was a better writer. though. Now enjoy the last chapter

* * *

"I guess the reason why I did those crazy things today is because I wanted to silence my conscience and do something that the group will benefit from." Shirley begins. And then she got it all off her chest. At first she was relieved that André and the kids went to see André's mother for two weeks. After all the last months and weeks had been pretty challenging for Shirley. She often had to handle her job as mother, housewife, student and business owner simultaneously. At the end the pressure was unbearable so Shirley asked André for two weeks off from her family duties so she could focus on her business and Greendale. Of course André supported her. But Shirley felt guiltier from day to day.

"I'm a horrible wife and mother, Pierce. I send my family away so I could what? Study and sell food?!" Shirley sobs. "After a few days I was regretting it more than you can imagine. So I jumped at the first opportunity to right a wrong. And Britta sleeping with Jeff seemed like a big wrong at that time."

But when they were following Britta's car like in a bad film noire Shirley realized that this was not the path the good lord intended for her to take.

"I know I have this dark and destructive side inside of me but I thought pursuing my dream job and being a wife and mother would seal the darkness up." Shirley concludes downheartedly.

Though Pierce should know some things about the trials and tribulations of being a business owner and a husband, he can't really grasp the problem. His seven marriages didn't work out for other reasons than business-first-manners. But he does sense the pain Shirley's in, though he doesn't fully get why she didn't just call her family to come back. But being sensitive and comforting has never been a strong suit of his so he settles for the practical solution.

"Shirley, Shirley, Shirley let me handle the business for a while. We could even employ some people to do the accounting. Step back for a while, call your family and tell them to come home. And you're not a bad mother and wife. I've always had the most respect for you. You know that." Pierce says.

Sitting in the poorly lit hallway next to Pierce who is entangled in wires and futuristic devices, Shirley realized that Pierce did lift her spirits with his words. She's not a bad wife and mother. She just had too many responsibilities. In the last couple of days she should have noticed that family is more important than business and called them to come back but instead she immersed herself in this crazy adventure with Pierce. Burnout comes in different shades, she thinks. Some people run around naked in the streets and some people spy on their friends in the middle of the night. At the thought about the Kony guy Shirley can't help laughing.

"Let's go home Pierce. We did enough spying for a lifetime."

There wouldn't have been a reason to spy anyway because meanwhile Britta has knocked herself out with three Cuba Libres, several glasses of wine and a shot of Tequila. Jeff having drunk slightly less and being able to tolerate more alcohol sits next to Annie on the floor. The hilarity of dubbing a broadcast of Casablanca wore off a few minutes ago. In comfortable silence the two of them dwell on their booze-soaked thoughts until Annie breaks the silence.

"What have I been doing wrong, Jeff? I mean, how could I have made this relationship work? You're a guy; just tell me what you would be expecting in a relationship!" Annie asks drunkenly.

"Annie, don't even think that you did anything wrong. This guy is an idiot for not wanting to be with you." Jeff declares looking right into Annie's beautiful eyes. "And I'm certainly not the one to give relationship advice. Ask Shirley if you must. All I know is that you are…" Jeff interrupts his speech realizing that he was just about to express how much he values her. And from the past he learned that those sincere heart-to-hearts are quite dangerous. But seeing Annie hang on his every word and looking at him with that familiar longing he concludes "…never failing to surprise me. You make me laugh and above all, you make me want to be a better person."

Having expressed those feelings the attraction for each other rises once again to the surface. Months and years of denying and pretending slowly fade away. Sober reluctance washed away by glasses of alcoholic beverages; comfortable silence once again; looks imbued with yearning for each other's touch.

Almost simultaneously Jeff and Annie lean towards their third kiss. The force of Jeff's tongue in her mouth make Annie's insides flutter with arousal. Eager to explore all of Jeff Winger Annie hoists herself closer to him so her breasts touch his chest. Firm hands caressing Annie's body, wet lips and hot bodies grinding against each other. The world seems to stop just for the two of them until suddenly Britta noisily adjusts her sleeping position the couch.

As if caught in the act Jeff and Annie immediately let go of each other. Like a doe in the headlight Annie breathlessly looks at Britta. False alarm, she's still sleeping.

Jeff's look says more than he could say at this moment: Consequences don't matter now. So she takes him by the hand and leads him to the bedroom. Ironically Shirley wasn't that far off from the truth after all. The end.


End file.
